Key Advertising Formats Of Social Media Promotion: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok

Over the past five years, social media has evolved from something completely optional to an absolute necessity for marketers. Social media has turned traditional marketing upside down. But which one should you choose as the main platform for brand promotion? To answer this question, it is important to take into account not only convenience but also the interests of customers, the specifics of the business, and the effectiveness of the tools that a particular platform provides.

Despite the different formats and tools, the goal of promotion, as a rule, is the same – to attract a new active audience. The effectiveness of these platforms has been proven by statistics from various reputable sources. If you feel uncertain about the creation of the SMM strategy yourself, feel free to contact the Aitarget team. 

Each site has its advantages. Today, we invite you to study the formats and tools provided by Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for SMM purposes.

Basic Instagram Advertising Formats

Instagram is one of the largest players in the social media industry. It has made a significant contribution to the development of global blogging and has become a major source of income for many influencers. Instagram has 500 million daily active users.

In the US, 63% of users visit it every day. The most popular Instagram blogger is Cristiano Ronaldo. He has 316 million subscribers. As you can see, this platform has unlimited advertising opportunities. For this purpose, you can use the following formats:

1. Advertising in Stories. These are full-screen ads that appear in user stories. Filters and video effects are available to create promotions that look like regular Stories.
2. Photo advertising in the feed and the Explore section. Brands showcase products and services using a static image. You can use any content already published in your account or create something new specifically for this ad format.
3. Video ads in the feed and the Explore section. It lasts up to one minute and brings users closer to your products. The video trend continues, so to keep up with the competition, don’t ignore this format.
4. Carousel. The user scrolls through a series of images or videos to which a call-to-action button is attached – a transition to the site or your account. This will help you highlight multiple products at once – share a multi-part story or photo. In one publication, there can be up to 10 images in a slideshow.

Now, let’s move on to Facebook.

Key Facebook Advertising Formats

Facebook has about 2,7 billion active users. This is truly the most influential social media platform on the Internet. More than 140 million companies are registered on the site, which means that you lose the competition if you don’t have an FB account.

The available formats depend on the chosen advertising goal – user engagement, traffic to the site, application installation, and so on. The target also determines the available ad locations – not just Facebook, but Instagram, Messenger, or Audience Network. Still, we can focus on the following formats available:

1. Photos, videos, and slideshows. These formats combine images, videos, and text. As with Instagram, you can promote or kick-start a post, or create a separate advertising post, either with a single photo or video, or in a carousel, or video format with individual links.
2. Instant Experience. This is a full-screen format replacing Canvas that opens when a person interacts with your ad on a mobile device.
3. A selection of several products. When a person clicks on it, it opens in Instant Experience. Shoppers can view, search and buy products directly from their phones in a user-friendly, intuitive interface.

So, the opportunities of Facebook are also almost unlimited. Now let’s take a look at TikTok.

The Main Advertising Formats on TikTok

As of December 2019, the Tik-Tok software has been downloaded 1.5 billion times (according to the Play Market and App Store technologists). About 500 million of them are active users. Almost half of the current permanent audience is adolescents and young people aged from 16 to 24. TikTok has become more popular after the pandemic: for example, it received more than 12 million new users only in March 2020. All this makes it a promising platform for advertising. Here are the formats to consider:

1. Brand Takeover. These are advertisements in the form of images, GIFs, or videos that can be linked to a brand landing page or hashtag within an app. The user will see them in their feed before any UGC content appears.
2. In-feed Native Video. These are video ads that are 9 to 15 seconds long. They appear between user content in the TikTok feed and can be viewed or skipped. Advertisements support several mechanics: clicking a button or downloading an app.
3. Hashtag Challenge. The mechanics are simple: popular TikTok bloggers launch a challenge, according to which you need to record a video in the required format and publish it on your profile with a specific hashtag.

Since the site has a lot of fans and is developing steadily, it is not surprising that there is a lot of advertising here. One can promote any goods and services. But, according to the rules and the license agreement, the marketplace is limited here.

Will Users Remain Forever Online?

It is improbable that people will use social media less after the pandemic. After all, there will be no exit from the net (at least a return to the pre-quarantine level). The authors of the Global Digital 2021 report predict that the digital revolution will go on and the demand for social networks will grow. Most likely, there will be new tools for teams that work and learn remotely.

At the same time, a kind of “digital detox” as a result of fatigue from social networks can also become a new trend. In the fall of 2020, Brandwatch reported a record number of social media account deletions. This mainly happened due to the excessive psychological fatigue from the continuous flow of information. So, do not forget to follow the trends and diversify your SMM strategy accordingly.